The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

d) Miss Stewart, the colored substitute teacher involved, stated that she was assigned to the Altgeld School on Monday, to the Pullman School Tuesday, and back to the Altgeld Wednesday. On Monday she had charge of the eighth grade. About twenty-five minutes before recess five or six boys came to her stating that they had been appointed as monitors for that day and asked to be excused. This request was granted by Miss Stewart. Shortly afterward Miss Deneen, a white teacher, brought the boys back into the room, stating that they had been disorderly; she deprived them of their monitorship. One boy, Paul, mentioned in the article, resented this and was impudent to Miss Deneen. He was suspended by Miss Deneen to take effect the next day and to return only on condition that he made apologies for his conduct. He was present in the room on the same afternoon.

Miss Stewart first knew about the supposed strike when she read it in the morning paper. She stated that she had no trouble with any of the students during the entire day, and there was no occasion to call in the principal, Mr. Brooks. Miss Deneen also had some trouble with a girl in the same room. Miss Stewart had no trouble either with Paul or the girl mentioned in the case. Mr. Brooks at no time during that day was called into the room.

e) The parents of the children were incensed over the false publicity given them.

f) The suggestive effect of this report was immediate. At the Coleman School, according to the principal, the children were greatly excited over the account and looked upon it as a precedent which had not occurred to them. She thought that such publicity, even if true, could have no good effect upon the minds and conduct of the children.

The prominence given to the idea of "striking" also had its effect. Discussions of strikes for other causes followed in the Pullman School. Later, in February the students of the Crane Technical School threatened a strike because of the removal of a teacher from the junior staff to the high-school staff.

On June 18, 1918, a Negro organization expressed the views of Negroes on the Chicago Tribune's handling of a news article entitled: "Negro Benefit Carries Mammy to Pearly Gates." The occasion of the article was a musical recital given by Negro artists at the Auditorium and patronized by many cultured whites and Negroes. It was a benefit performance in aid of the families of Negro soldiers. The letter of protest to the editor of the Tribune read:

On Saturday, June 15, there appeared in your paper what purported to be an account of a meeting and concert at the Auditorium held for the benefit of Negro soldiers' families. Despite the fact that it was distinctly a patriotic affair, presenting on its program colored artists of unquestioned talent, and rendered in such a manner as to evoke the warmest praise from an appreciative and music loving audience, your reporter saw fit to tell of it by reciting what he knew or thought he knew about Negro "mammies."

The body of the article contains sixty-two lines. Thirteen of these are devoted to mention of the names of the colored artists, ten to a description of the crowd, which, by the way, was inaccurate, fourteen to another list of notables in attendance and twenty-five to an enraptured dissertation on "mammies." Not only is this reference grossly irrelevant, but to colored people it is positively distasteful as everyone should know by now.

The caption of the article "Negro Benefit Carries Mammy to Pearly Gates" could by no stretch of fancy be taken as the heading for an account of a musical concert.... There is no complaint against the limited appreciations of your reporter, neither do we protest against his fondness for the adolescent idol of his black mammy; but as a news item the account is ridiculously improper and out of place.

The patriotic endeavors of the colored people of this city have more than once been discouraged by just such thoughtlessness and incomprehension. You would do a great service to colored people and to our government in the prosecution of the war if in such accounts as appear you cause to be eliminated such personal reminiscences and irritating irrelevancies as are calculated to make patriotism difficult and racial relationship unsettled.